That should help. Because tonight, as the Sharks open the 2007-08 season with a serious chance to win the Stanley Cup, Coach Ron Wilson and captain Patrick Marleau find themselves under a magnifying glass.

It’s not because of the friction that developed between the two in the playoffs last spring when Detroit eliminated the Sharks. That’s secondary. It’s more about the particular way things ended:

With Marleau, normally a solid playoff performer, making defensive mistakes and going scoreless in six games. With Wilson, as creative as any coach in the NHL, stumped as he sought to instill resiliency and mental toughness in his players.

Five months later, things again appear to be on track. The big offensive guns led by superstar center Joe Thornton are back. Though Scott Hannan is gone, the rest of the defense remains intact. The goaltending burden is squarely on Evgeni Nabokov’s shoulders, and he welcomes that.

Still, there are differences.

For one thing, teammates say Marleau – who received a two-year, $12.6 million contract extension in August – came to training camp even more focused than in the past. An exhibition-game fight against Vancouver is cited as evidence of his resolve.

For another, Wilson has established a leadership council among his players as a means to improve communication and increase accountability.

“There’s no excuse to not know what you’re doing on the ice anymore,” Wilson said. “That’s what this year is all about.”

Knowing what to do was the problem in the final minute in Game 4 against Detroit.

The Sharks were seconds away from taking a commanding 3-1 series lead. But the Red Wings tied the score with 33.1 seconds left and won in overtime.

“Some people have to take a good look in the mirror why they were in the positions they were in on the ice,” Wilson said that night, faulting his forwards for not being more defense-oriented after the Red Wings pulled their goalie.

Confrontation?

Wilson didn’t name the guilty parties, but Marleau was one of those out of position. Reports of a face-to-face confrontation circulated, though both parties deny that.

But something clearly did happen.

In May, General Manager Doug Wilson likened the situation to incidents between other coaches and their top players – Ken Hitchcock and Mike Modano in Dallas, John Tortorella and Vincent Lecavalier in Tampa Bay. In each case, the team grew stronger.

“Passion and emotion is important in what we do,” the G.M. said more recently. “It should matter to everybody when we don’t get to where we want to be. . . . Sometimes feathers get ruffled, but if it’s for the right reason, deal with it. Grow from it.”

Marleau and his coach talked over the summer.

“I think we can build on it and both learn from it,” said Marleau, who steadfastly refuses to blame a shoulder injury for his poor performance. “Hopefully it will make us better.”

Ron Wilson, too, sees the upside to past frustrations.

“I think Patty, after everything he went through in the playoffs – whether it was heat from me, or maybe more that the heat also came a little bit from the outside – he said, ‘You know what? They’re all right. I’ve got to improve in those areas.’

“And you know what?” Wilson said. “When you do, you’re going to win when you have that kind of talent.”

Marleau’s teammates have his back.

“The criticism that came was more from outside the room. We all have confidence in him,” right wing Mike Grier said, referring to columns questioning Marleau’s quiet leadership style. “He’s our captain and our leader and we all look to him for that.

“He’s a proud guy, and whenever you’re a very good player in this league, you’re an All-Star, and people challenge you, I think the best comes out in him.”

A tough job

Thornton, who served as a captain in Boston, indicated that abuse comes with the job.

“Everybody gets ridiculed when you don’t do well,” Thornton said. “The bottom line is maybe he just had a bad week. That’s all it was. A bad 10 days. It happens. But Patty’s such a good player, it’s long gone. He looks great.”

Marleau also re-examined events in the Detroit series over the summer, searching for a lesson to be learned. And he, too, zeroed in on the team’s inability to rebound after the Game 4 loss – scoring only once in losing the next two games.

He and his coach were on the same page.

Ron Wilson has decided that the best way to prepare his players for postseason pressure might be to build a little more adversity into the regular season.

“With some people, I’ll be a lot more confrontational the minute I see their game slip,” Wilson said. “If they can handle the heat I’ll put on them, hopefully the heat that’s put on them in a game, they’ll be able to handle.”

Wilson, however, is sharing the accountability.

He has organized a half-dozen or so players into a leadership council. Neither he nor Marleau would identify the players – “That stuff stays in house,” the coach said – except to say they represent different levels of experience, backgrounds and positions.

Their role is to help establish team goals – for example, rank among the league’s top five teams in hits, Wilson suggested – and make sure team standards are being met.

Chain of discipline

“If somebody’s not holding up their end of the bargain, I’ve explained to them, I’m kind of the hammer, you guys are the fly swatters,” Wilson said. “If the fly swatter doesn’t work, then you see the hammer. And if the hammer eventually doesn’t work, you’re going to see the ax man, which is Doug.”

At one point, it appeared that the coach himself might be called to see the ax man. On May 21, Doug Wilson passed up the opportunity to give his coach a vote of confidence for the coming season, saying instead that he had presented Ron Wilson with a series of questions and was waiting for the answers.

A week later, the G.M. announced that Wilson and his staff would return for a fourth season.

Last week, Ron Wilson said the whole episode “was all media stuff. That was never posed to me that way and I never felt that at all.”

As far as extra pressure on his job this season, Wilson said:

“I’ve coached long enough and I don’t even dwell on any of that stuff. That’s not even a concern. . . . You don’t coach as many games as I’ve coached and not feel comfortable in your own skin. That’s where I am.”

If there were any lingering issues between the coach and the captain, Wilson has an odd way of showing it: He announced Monday that he was moving Marleau to the Sharks’ top line, where he’ll skate at left wing with Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo.

“Patty is capable of playing really well as a winger,” the coach said. “It’s not like I put Patty on the left wing of the fourth line and asked him to check. He’s on the left wing with the most dangerous centerman in hockey.

“He can be center on the second line and get 70 points or left winger on the first line and get 110 points,” Wilson said. “I would choose to get the 110 points and finish off all the stuff Joe sets up.”

Marleau doesn’t really need any convincing.

“It’s always fun playing with Joe and Cheech,” the captain said. “You try not to think too much and just go out and play.”

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